


Let the light in

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mentions of Abusive Relationships, Violence, not sympathetic to Eöl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2345375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(AU) After they flee Nan Elmoth, Aredhel and Maeglin do not go to Gondolin, but turn towards Hithlum and are found by Fingon instead. Eöl, however, is still following...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was encouraged to write an AU where Aredhel and Maeglin go back to Fingon instead of going to Gondolin after fleeing Nan Elmoth. So here is that AU!
> 
> Also, this heavily influenced by lintamande's wonderfully compelling headcanon (detailed here: http://lintamande.tumblr.com/post/95604383233/poisoned-javelin-problems) that Eöl brought the poisoned javelin when he followed Aredhel and Maeglin because he initially thought they were heading to Fingon and was planning an assassination attempt. Go read the post, it’s really interesting! This story doesn’t stick to that version of events, obviously (being AU) but I just find it interesting and that was definitely a large influence on this.

**_Maeglin_ **

“What can you see, Lómion?” said his mother, climbing up the ridge to stand beside Maeglin as he gazed out over the mountains. There was little to see, as the rain and fog washed all in greyness, but he felt a light sense of unease as he contemplated the rising peaks that marched along the horizon.

“These are the mountains which shelter Gondolin? The Crissaegrim?” he squinted doubtfully into the distance. “I don’t know… I mean… they look, well, they look impassable. Especially in this weather.”

As if on cue there was a rumble of thunder from far away to the north.

She gave him a long look, then smiled suddenly. “Well” she said. “It’s fortunate that we won’t be going that way, isn’t it?”

Maeglin looked at her in confusion. “But back in Himlad when we passed through, you said to those scouts…”

“That we were heading to Gondolin, yes” said Aredhel, nodding. “I did say it rather often, didn’t I?”

Suddenly Maeglin was smiling too, although he looked a little indignant for all that. “You meant to lay a false trail!” He frowned. “Do you really think that will work…? I mean, if  _he_  is following…”

“It is the best we can do, and let us hope he does not expect such a ploy” she said, grimacing. “To tell you the truth” she admitted, “I was half undecided myself, which is why I did not tell you, my darling.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek before turning, going back down the ridge to where their horses waited. “We should be on our way. Keep to the scree slopes, so we’re harder to track. We won’t stop until we reach the Ered Wethrin, which should be easier to cross… there’s a pass. And by then maybe this weather will have let up.”

“What if there are people?”

Aredhel made a face. “If we meet scouts in the mountains, with luck they should be my father’s, or my brother Findekáno’s.”

 _Let us only hope._  She did not say it aloud.

The rain grew heavier as they walked, and soon it became necessary to lead their horses, lest they slip on the rocky ground. For a while they followed the north bank of the river (“The Brithiach” said Aredhel to Maeglin, “I’ll show you on a map when we get there”) before it turned off to the north, and there was only rocky mountain soil, rising in ever-steeper ridges before them as they neared the Ered Wethrin.

The rain did not, in fact, let up. Where there had before been only drizzle, now the rain came down in sheets, lashing at their faces and quickly soaking the hooded cloaks they pulled up against the weather. It was slow travelling, leading the horses, and it was getting dark, the heavy purple-grey of the clouds overhead fading all too quickly into night. His mother was worried, Maeglin could tell, although she tried to hide it. He felt it too; a sense of urgency.  As though they were being followed. He thought of his father, and set his mouth in a firm, defiant line, letting his fingers run over the hilt of the heavy black sword he had taken as they fled.

The jewel set into the pommel of Anguirel felt cold, and the touch of it did nothing to lessen his unease.

————- 

**_Eöl_ **

The river had risen high, Eöl saw. He knelt by the water’s edge in the mud, scrutinising the bank. He could see little, but perhaps, if they had lingered on the muddy bank a while before turning onto the rocky ground that led to the mountains…  _there._  The impression was faint, lapped by the river and quickly fading in the rising stream and the rain, but it was, unmistakably, a hoof print, and relatively fresh too. ( _If it had not been fresh_ , he thought,  _it would have been washed away by now_.  _They must be close_.) He ran his thumbs over the hilts of his curved throwing knives, then the tiny bottle that hung on a strip of leather around his neck, then lastly over the buckle of the thick belt than crossed his body, beneath his heavy woollen cloak.  _They would never know the danger he carried with him, hidden under his cloak. Not until it was too late._

At that thought, Eöl smiled and turned away from the mountains to follow the river.

———-

**_Maeglin_ **

They stopped at nightfall, although Maeglin thought that if his mother had had her way they would not have stopped at all. He felt the same restless sense of urgency. It was dangerous out here though, especially at night, and not, he thought, because of his father’s pursuit only. Maeglin thought of tales his mother had told him of orc raiding parties, hair-raising stories such as he had loved as a child. He shuddered, his traitorous mind thinking of the warm fire back in his old room in Nan Elmoth, before shaking his head and frowning. No, he thought. No, you cannot go back. That part of your life is done now, and good riddance.

They had made camp – such as it was – in the back of a small cave in a sheer rock wall, just off the stony defile along which they had been picking their painstaking way as the rain hurled itself upon the scree slopes.

His mother had lit a fire, although both knew it was a risk. It was cold though; drenched to the skin through his cloak, leather jerkin and thick woollens, Maeglin had not been able to feel his fingers and toes for the last hour, and had spent every moment worrying how he would be able to use a sword should they be attacked.

Now the feeling was returning to his hands it merely  _hurt_. Maeglin clutched his knees to his chest, listening to the quiet whinnying of the horses in the cave entrance, and watching his mother spreading out her cloak to dry across a rock. She caught his gaze and smiled at him, coming to sit beside him by the fire.

“Lómion” she said, putting one arm around his shoulders and leaning her head against his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

He laid his head against hers, taking comfort from her closeness. “Yes. Don’t worry.”

They had no food to cook, and it was too sodden outside for hunting and they had no arrows anyway, so she offered him a piece of somewhat damp waybread and a slightly softened apple. She bit a corner off her own bread and chewed thoughtfully as she stared into the flames. “We’ll be safe soon. This will be over…” she sighed. “As soon as we get through the mountains, we’ll be in Dor-lómin, and we can give ourselves up to my brother’s people, or my father’s. They’ll protect us” she sounded pained, and she swallowed, as though choking on her food, or her words. When she looked up at Maeglin, there were tears glistening at the corners of her eyes, which alarmed him more than he could say.  _He had never seen her cry, not even when his father had hit her, not even when he himself had cried…_  she swallowed, and reached out to touch his cheek, her hand as cold as his own. “Lómion, forgive me…”

“Amil” he said weakly. He smiled at the thought that after this he would be able to use the language of her people whenever he wanted; it had always made him feel safe, loved, a secret and forbidden thing that only the tow of them shared. (It had always been the two of them, protecting each other.) He placed his hand over her own, trying to warm her. “Forgive what…? You got me out of there… you did everything for me… my whole life, everything…” he knew he was making little sense. He drew in a breath.

She opened her mouth to say more, but at that moment there came a snort from the horses at the cave entrance.

They both froze listening. Then Maeglin’s stomach turned to ice as he heard a loud bark of a voice, echoing strangely in the cave.

“Who’s there?”

The two of them exchanged a glance, and Maeglin tried to read his mother’s eyes, wide and opaque in the firelight. She stood slowly, motioning that he should get behind her. For a moment he was about to argue, but one look at her face told him it would avail him nothing. He listened to the silence, loosening his sword in its scabbard –  _no, his father’s sword, for he had never used it before, not in earnest…_   _whom had he thought to kill, bringing it with him? He was no warrior_  – without drawing the blade.

Maeglin could hear his own breathing, too loud, and yet still he strained his ears in the silence, listening harder than he had ever listened before. He could hear the low thrumming of the rain outside and the rumble of thunder. But over that, he could hear steps, more than one set, and the low exchange of whispers, the uneven rock walls warping and amplifying the sound.

They did not  _sound_  like orcs, but he realised he did not even know what orcs sounded like. He could almost have laughed at that thought, if the circumstances had been different.

“We are friends” his mother answered slowly, warily. Her own hand was at the stolen sword at her own belt. “We mean you no harm. Show yourselves!”

A shadow appeared on the wall, around the corner of the tunnel that led outside. It danced in the firelight, stretched impossibly tall and thin, grotesquely contorted against the uneven cave wall. There was a blade in its hand, and as he watched more shadowy figures appeared, coming up behind it.

Suddenly Maeglin was horribly aware of the end of the cave at their backs, the fact that they were at a dead end, and could only back onto solid rock. _Trapped_. The word pounded at his temples like the beginning of a headache.

For a moment the shadow on the wall was completely still, but for the flickering dance of the flames. Then there was a cry, and it rushed forward around the corner, an amorphous black shape cut out of the golden firelight. It was charging, raising its longsword to her throat even she drew her own blade. Maeglin was shouting, he realised, a long, wordless cry of fury as he brandished Anguirel. But his blow went wide as one of the figure’s companions appeared at his side and pulled his arms back behind him, another coming up and holding him immobile for all he struggled. The sword fell from his grasp with a clatter onto the cave floor.

Maeglin watched in helpless horror, as the leader held his mother by the front of her rough woollen tunic, gloved hand bunching in the fabric.

He – for Maeglin was fairly certain the stranger was male – was hooded and cloaked against the rain, and wore mud-spattered riding boots. The rest of his garb, Maeglin could not glimpse, but he did not look like an orc, he thought. He could not see a face, for the hood.

Maeglin could hardly see his mother’s face in the firelight either, but he realised she had gone still, staring into the stranger’s hood, her eyes wide with… what? Fear? Suddenly the stranger loosed his grip on her, stepping away as though she had struck him. She did not move, but merely stared, and Maeglin saw disbelief cross her face, and then pure joy. There was silence in the cave for a long moment, but for the sounds of the storm outside, as the two of them stared at each other. Then the hooded stranger’s sword dropped down to his side, his arm limp.

It was Aredhel who broke the silence, her voice small and cracked. “Findekáno? Is… can that be you…?”

Her words were like stones dropped into a still pool, resounding through the cave. He threw back his hood, and Maeglin saw a mass of tangled dark hair, shot through with something gold that caught the firelight, glinting brightly.

“ _Irissë?_ ” Maeglin could not see a face for it was still in shadow, but the voice was filled with joy and disbelief.

“Yes” she said, letting out a tiny sound that was half a laugh and half a sob. “Yes, it’s me. I’m here.”

And then they were in each other’s arms, and he was picked her up and spinning her in a circle right there in the cave, laughing in delight. For a moment Maeglin was too stunned to think. The newcomer clung to her, holding her to his chest in a bonecrushing hug. “Irissë, Irissë, we feared you lost” he whispered into her hair, his voice breathless with emotion. He had switched to the high tongue, Maeglin realised, trying to translate quickly enough to follow the conversation. “There were… well, we never got  _real_ news from Gondolin, damn Turno and his stubborness to Mandos and back, but there were… things we heard, there were  _rumours_ …”

“Findekáno” said Aredhel, after she got her breath back. She held his forearms for balance. “I’m fine. Now. There was…” she seemed out of breath too, as he pressed a kiss to her hair. “Oh, where to begin…” she stared around the cave, seeming to notice Maeglin once more. “Finno, for Valar’s sake, get your scouts to unhand my son.”

He looked nonplussed. “ _Son…?_ ”

“Yes” she said proudly, holding out a hand to Maeglin. “My son.”

He blinked, giving a nod to the faceless figures holding Maeglin’s arms. Maeglin rubbed his wrists warily, picking up his sword and sheathing it, coming forward as his mother beckoned him.

“Lómion” she said, her voice proud. “This is my brother Findekáno, the crown prince Fingon. I’ve told you of him.” Maeglin nodded, staring into Fingon’s face, so like hers; there was as much disbelief in his blue eyes as Maeglin felt. “Findekáno” said Aredhel, unperturbed. “This is my son, Lómion.” She frowned. “His father named him Maeglin.”

They both bowed formally to each other. Maeglin wondered if this was how one usually greeted a prince of this people that suddenly seemed extremely alien to him, before remembering that technically he was a prince too. The thought did not give him comfort.

“Pleased to meet you” said Fingon, awkwardly. He looked suddenly about the cave, a few of his scouts coming to stand behind him, taking their hoods down warily and scrutinising Maeglin and Aredhel with some curiosity. “It’s pure chance that we found you. I was out with the mountain patrols, we assumed it was orcs in here. We came to root them out… Irissë, what are you  _doing_  here?” he drew in a long breath, visibly shaken. “What are you running from?”

Her face twitched, but her voice was flat, impassive. “My husband” she said. “Lómion’s father.”

Fingon’s face darkened, his gloved hands balling into fists. “Who is he? If he harmed a single hair on your head, I swear I’ll - ”

“Findekáno.” She grasped his hands, stilling them. “It’s enough for now that we’ve found you, I’ll explain everything later. Now, please can we get my son somewhere safe?”


	2. Chapter 2

**_Aredhel_ **

“I’ll kill him” fumed Fingon after her tale was told, pacing backwards and forwards before the hearth. They had stopped at a small way castle, an outpost high in the mountains, when the weather prevented them from carrying on to Dor-lómin that night. Now the two of them sat in the turret bedroom, talking late into the night as they had not in years, as the rain lashed the windows.

“Findekáno…” there was pain in her voice. “Findekáno, no. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”

“Yes, but if I  _had_ …” There was blind fury in his eyes and his voice, in his very stance, tense as a coiled spring. “I can’t believe he did this to you… if I had known…” he drew his dagger suddenly and drove it into the wooden mantelpiece with a shout of frustration, before collapsing onto the bench by the fireside beside Irissë, his head in his hands. She held him silently in her arms. He looked up at her, his face tear-streaked. “I’ll kill him” he said, without much conviction, his voice barely more than a hollow whisper. “What he did to you… not letting you leave,  _threatening_  you…” he tailed off. “Can you forgive me, Irissë? For letting this happen?”

She held him close to her, rocking him in her arms, taking comfort as she inhaled the smell of his hair that was still so familiar after all these years. “Finno, you damned fool, of course I can forgive you. There was nothing you could have done, do you understand that?” She sighed. “But you can help me keep Lómion safe.”

“We’ll take him to Barad Eithel” said Fingon. “Atar and Lalwendë will welcome him, and if anywhere is safe, it’s there. Or, you said he is a skilled smith? We could send him east, to Curvo in Himlad. Lómion and Tyelpë might get on. I could write to Maitimo about - ”

“Finno, no. I can’t send Lómion back to Himlad, it’s too… too  _close._  Eöl will come for him” said Aredhel, shaking her head. “Eöl hates our people…” she put her head in her hands, feeling nothing but disgust. “He hates me, except he claimed to  _love_  me, saying that I wasn’t like them, that it wasn’t too late for me. That I could still be saved,  _cleansed_  of my people, of my culture…” the words came too quickly, stumbling over each other. “And… fool that I was, I listened.” She felt suddenly sick. “I believed him, Finno. I wanted nothing but to be  _free_ , I wanted it so badly after leaving Turno’s city that I just drank it all in. Eöl seemed so… different. I was still that rebellious little girl you knew, in many ways.” She gave a bitter bark of a laugh. “I didn’t know what he was then. He did something to me, using some enchantment…” she gestured weakly in the air, as Fingon listened in shocked silence. “I should have left, I know. I should have taken Lómion when he was a baby, wrapped him in my cloak and ran. But I was afraid, Finno, I was so afraid, and Eöl was so strong. I felt weak. Do you know…” she shook her head. “No. Of course you don’t. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t… I don’t know how to explain…” she felt her chest wracked by sudden, choking sobs.

“Oh, Irissë” Findekáno held her tightly in his arms. He took her face in his hands, looking deep into her eyes. “You have suffered, and you feel as though you’re  _marred_  now, don’t you? No longer brave and strong, no longer worthy?”

She stared at him in amazement. “How did you…?”

He simply held her in his arms, clasping her to his chest. “You  _are_  free now, Irissë. Know that there is nothing wrong with you. Lómion is safe, and you’re both away from…  _him._  You  _are_  brave, you  _are_  strong, more than I ever was, it should be you they call  _valiant_ …” he was whispering in her ear, just the sound of his voice comforting her, that voice that she had tried to shut out of her head for so long lest she break, like so many other voices from her past. She scrubbed hot tears from her eyes roughly with the heels of her hands, but more tears only came; after that she let them soak into the shoulder of her brother’s tunic.

“Finno” she said at last, drawing back and looking at him, her voice small. “What if… what if they don’t want me back? Atar, I mean? And the court? The family?”

He looked as though she had slapped him. “Irissë… how can you say that…?”

“Eöl will never stop hunting. He’s too proud, he wants his son and his sword, and if he can’t have Lómion alive he will not allow anyone else to, either…” she swallowed, her mouth dry, “we’re all kinslayers to him, he cares nothing for killing our people. Views it as  _morally justified_ , even” she shuddered in disgust. “I’m afraid of what he’ll do. He sees me as a thief of his property, stealing away and taking Lómion with me. He will hunt us down, he will…”

“Irissë” said Fingon. “Listen to me. You are not his. This is over, you are safe. And if he tries to hurt you, well…” he frowned at the fire in the grate, staring darkly into the dancing flames. “Maybe we will have to put his moral views about killing kinslayers to the test, hmm?”

“Finno, don’t even joke about such things. Eöl is a sworn vassal to Elu Thingol. I do not want war.”

“What makes you think I was joking?” he growled, but he relented, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry, Irissë.” He looked out of the window at the storm that still buffeted the little hill fort, stretching. “We should sleep. Your room should be prepared by now. Everything will look better in the light of dawn, I promise you.”

She could not help but smile, so much that her jaw hurt. “Oh Finno. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything.”

As she turned to leave, he raised his head, looking troubled. “Irissë?”

“Yes?”

“What of Turukáno? Where is he?”

She frowned. “Findekáno…” she sought for the right words. “I know you must be angry at Turno, and I can see why you would be, actually. But you must understand… I swore to keep his confidence…”

“Yes” he said, a little too quickly, as though he had been expecting this. “Yes, of course you did.” He let out a quite huff of humourless laughter, before he turned a genuine smile on her once more. That smile was as golden as she remembered, and yet now tinged with a little sadness, the weight of the intervening years. “Sleep well, Irissë.”

“Sleep well, Finno.”

———— 

**_Eöl_ **

The storm raged about him as he crested the rise, seeing the golden pinprick of light on the next hill. He thought of his son, in there.  _Maeglin probably believed everything they told him, swallowing it eagerly._ The boy had always been foolish, but he had shown promise, and he was Eöl’s own blood. He would have him back.  _And the uncle, her brother the kinslayer…_  Eöl gritted his teeth. He was there too.

He was cold, but clinging to the rocks on that mountain ridge, keeping the golden firelight of that turret window in sight despite the blinding white flashes of lightning that lit the roiling clouds from the inside, despite the wind that ripped at his cloak and whipped his wet hair into his eyes, he felt almost warm.

There were guards on the walls, but not at the base of the tower, which rose sheer and straight up from the bare rock, dizzyingly high. Clinging to the slick paving stones, he began to unwind the rope that was wrapped across his body, feeling the hook that hung at his belt.

The edge of the iron was rusted, but wickedly pointed. He smiled slightly as he attached the four-pronged hook to the end of the rope with a secure knot, testing its weight, the way it swung.

He would not need a sharp edge to the hook for tonight’s purpose; and yet somehow, it just seemed  _right._

_————_

**_Fingon_ **

He dreamed in rags and tatters, his head as dark and storm-tossed as the sky outside the little tower room.  _A white ribbon, blowing away in a storm even as he tried to catch it in his hand; but instead there was a knife in his hand, and blood, although whose blood it was he did not know. But there was so much of it, his hands slipping with it, blood pouring everywhere; then the dream changed, and he was playing the harp, and there was fire all about him, and he was singing, trying to make them hear him. Then he was armoured in plate and mail, all silver and white. There was a white star, bursting in the sky overhead amid the flames as he tilted his head back to see the red dawn…_

There was a loud, metallic thud, and Fingon jerked awake, his eyes suddenly wide. This, he knew somehow, was no dream. The shutters of the window hung wide open, the cold wind and the rain skirling into the small, sparse room.

An imposing black figure stood framed in the window, climbing in over the sill. The wind blew back his hood, tendrils of wet black hair spilling out, unspooling in the rising wind. The lightning flashed, illuminating the figure in silhouette from behind, leaving Fingon momentarily blind.

When his vision cleared, the shadow was beside the bed; he had moved horrifyingly fast.  _Fingon could move fast, too._  After a scant moment longer, he was leaping from the other side of the bed, sweeping up his longsword from where hung from the bedpost in its scabbard, drawing it in a single stroke. He glanced down at himself in consternation; he was clothed, for it was cold in the tower room, but he wore only a thin tunic and breeches, while the other was dressed in what looked like some sort of scale armour from head to heal, flowing and graceful black metal.

Fingon’s eyes flicked to the knives in his opponent’s hands as he edged warily about the side of the bed. He was trying to decide whether he should shout for the guards, when he realised that with the crashing of the thunder outside rising to a peak, they would be unlikely to even hear him. But the thought had barely crossed his mind, anyway; Fingon would rather have done his own fighting any day.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What is your intent?”

The stranger tilted his chin upwards. “Do you not know?”

Fingon squinted, as a flash of lightning illuminated the room, for an instant brighter than the day. And in that moment he  _did_  know; it was those black eyes, the curve of his jaw, that sharp nose. Even the lift of the eyebrow; all reminded him unsettlingly of Maeglin, if Maeglin had had none of Aredhel in him.

“Eöl Moriquendi.”

Eöl inclined his head. “And you, kinslayer.”

Fingon glowered. “You can’t have my sister, or her son. They chose to leave you, because you hurt them. And you call me kinslayer?” he was spitting the words, his fury rising once more. “Well, then I’d watch how you behave around me. You’re my kin by marriage now.”  _That should give the great brute something to chew on_ , thought Fingon.  _Something to distract him_. He circled the bed, sword held out in front of him, trying to get a better look at Eöl’s armour and any other weapons he may have hidden under that great black cloak. Eöl was taller than he was, but slimmer of build under the armour, Fingon thought, although it was almost impossible to tell as Eöl was nothing but a dark outline until each new lightning flash lit the room.

Still, thought Fingon desperately, the armour may encumber him some. He stepped carefully around the end of the bed, his bare feet chilled by the stone floor, which was now slick with rainwater from the open window. He felt the wind lifting his hair as he held his sword out at Eöl.

“Oh, but you mistake me” Eöl purred. “I’m not here for your sister, although I will have my sword and my son before this night is gone. Everything in its own time.” Thunder cracked, and lightning flashed a mere half a heartbeat later – the storm was right overhead now – and Fingon saw that Eöl was smiling slightly. “No, I’m here for  _you_ ” he said conversationally “as it happens”.

“For… me?” This caught Fingon off guard. He frowned, angry now. “And you call  _me_  a kinslayer?” He thrust at Eöl with his sword, a light blow, testing his reaction. Eöl parried with his right-hand knife. “I rushed to the aid of those I loved, while they fought. You would have murdered me in my bed and called it justice? Revenge?”

“You’re not  _in_  your bed” pointed out Eöl, as Fingon’s sword thrust at his chest and glanced off his armour. Eöl was smiling again, almost lazily. He sheathed his daggers. “Besides, these are only for… safety. I mean not to end tonight with blood on my hands.” He raised his hands in the air in a gesture of peace, looking pointedly at Fingon’s outstretched sword. Slowly, watching Eöl all the while, Fingon sheathed the sword.

“You want to talk?” he barked. “Make it quick. I can’t think of anything you would say that I would want to hear. My sister has told me quite enough of you and your…  _ways_. But I’ll give you a chance to speak.”

They stood face to face, before the window. “Quite” said Eöl. “Did she tell you her story that I locked her up? Because I fail to see how that was any different from her previous… situation, in your brother’s hidden city. It seems you people have very odd principles when it comes to such matters.”

“What my brother does” said Fingon through gritted teeth, “is his own business. I do not answer for him.”

“I’m sure. And what of you? Do you deny that you are a kinslayer?”

Fingon pursed his lips, keeping his voice very even. “No. I cannot deny that, although I have felt remorse for my actions every moment since that day.” Doubt assailed him suddenly. “But you cannot only have scaled the tower wall to hear me say that.”

“No” said Eöl after a short silence, so quietly that Fingon almost did not hear him over the storm. “No, I did not.”

Lightning flashed once more, and quick as that Eöl was barrelling into him, the weight of armour and flesh and sodden wool knocking Fingon to the floor with terrible force, his sheathed sword falling uselessly from his hand even as the breath was knocked out of him. The back of his head cracked against the base of the wall, and for a moment he lay there, stunned, as bright lights danced before his eyes. He had bitten his tongue in the fall, and his mouth was already filling with the taste of blood. Already his hand was scrabbling desperately for the sword he had dropped on the ground at his side, but a cry of pain ripped through him as Eöl stepped on his fingers with a sickening crunch.

“See, and mark this” said Eöl, leaning down over him with one knee on Fingon’s breastbone, the other in his stomach, and one hand pulling his head back by the hair. “None of your blood will be on my hands, for I am not of… _that_  sort.” He was fumbing under his cloak now, reaching for something strapped to his back.

Fingon watched him silently, his mouth open in a wordless cry of pain. He should shout out, he knew, but the voice seemed to have stopped in his throat. Suddenly his sister’s words about enchantments came back to him, unwelcome, and he wondered if, even if he did call out for the guards, whether any would be awake to come to his aid.

He swallowed, his mouth dry, as Eöl languidely extracted an oddly shortened spear, a sawn-off javelin really, from a narrow cylindrical sheath on his back. He inspected the tip, his pace leisurely, as Fingon watched. Even from his position on the floor, Fingon could see how sharp it was.

He licked his lips nervously. “If you’re going to use that, you have a strange definition of not spilling my blood.” He gave an ironic laugh that was half a bloody cough, echoing Eöl’s previous words. “It seems you  _people_  have very odd principles when it comes to such matters.”

“Oh, I was entirely  _prepared_  to spill your blood” said Eöl. “If the need arose. Blood to avenge blood, you know. But why not be better than that?” He laid aside the javelin carefully. “Poison tipped, you know. A slow-acting, gentle little poison, when a trace is used in, say, a wound, but when the dose is larger…” he pulled a small bottle from a loop of leather around his neck, holding it close to Fingon to let him see the contents, “then it can have… quicker effects.”

The poison was thick, like lamp oil, Fingon saw. He could not tell the colour, for the glass of the bottle was dark. Eöl was unscrewing it, tugging Fingon’s head back and pressing the point of the javelin to the skin at the hollow of his throat even as Fingon struggled uselessly against the weight on his chest. He bit back cries of pain as Eöl’s armoured knee dug into his breast bone and his hand pulsed painful where it had been stepped on. Fingon’s head swam. With the last of his strength he spat a mouthful of blood at Eöl. “There” he said thickly. “You are stained with my blood after all.”

Eöl laughed, a dry sound like the rustle of leaves. “Quite” he said again. “Alright then, perhaps I am no better than you are. Is that what you want to hear, as you die? In the end though, it makes no difference at all. I am still doing this world a great service.”

Then, prying Fingon’s mouth open with iron-clad fingers, he poured the entire contents of the bottle of poison down his throat, to the last drop.

For a moment Fingon felt nothing, only something cold slipping down his throat, tasting only the barest hint of bitterness amid the iron tang of blood. Then a strange numbness started to creep through him, starting in his throat and then the tips of his fingers and toes. He tried to wretch, he _wanted_  to wretch, but Eöl was holding his head back, making him swallow, the point of the javelin held to the soft flesh under his chin. His muscles suddenly felt weak and useless, like wet string, the numbness spreading from his extremities.

“W - why?” he managed to choke out.

“Death to pay for death” said Eöl simply. “And as a warning to all of the rest of you.” He drew his face up very close to Fingon’s, and his breath smelled like aniseed, Fingon registered, somewhere in the back of his mind. Eöl’s face hardened. “And because of all those years  _she_  missed you.”

Fingon tried to speak, but he felt as though he was floating apart, his lips going numb and thick.

“You’ll see your brother Turgon soon enough” said Eöl. “As soon as I find out where the city - ”

But the rest of his words were drowned, as several things happened at once. Lightning flashed; there was a tearing cry of fury. Then something large and bright was striking Eöl in the head from the side, sending him sprawling off Fingon’s chest and onto the floor.

Blood seeped from a fresh cut on his temple, and there were shards of broken glass glittering everywhere, a lampstone rolling across the floor to come to rest in the corner… it was a lantern, Fingon realised, trying to turn his head to see who had swung it, but a weakness flooded over him, his head falling back against the floor. His vision was narrowing at the edges, and panic began to seize him, overlaid on the sudden wave of crushing lethargy that threatened to drown him, that terrible numbness.  _Sleep_ , came the thought. _Lie down, and relax. You will be gone soon_. But then a face was looming up out of the dark, lit by the lightning flashes and the blue-white glow of the lampstone.

“Irissë.” He could hear the slur in his speech, the word clumsy in his mouth, exhausting.  _So tired, he was so tired…_  he felt his breath catch in his throat. _No._

“I’m here, Finno.” She glanced behind her, “Lómion, bring the light.”

————

**_Aredhel_ **

“Lómion” she said, clinging to Fingon’s hand, her heart racing. She felt his pulse at his wrist, growing slower with each beat. “Do you know what this is?” She held the little empty bottle out in front of him, staring at her son intently. “Please…”  _Please let him know, let him know how to cure it, Eöl taught him so much…_  she glanced over at Eöl’s form laid out on the ground. Unconscious, but breathing. She looked back at Fingon, his eyes starting to fall closed, the muscles in his face slackening. He was disturbingly pale, and there was blood on his lips, as well as a drop of something thick and vividly green… she leaned down over him, tears in her eyes.

She patted his cheek, squeezing his hand tightly. “Come on Finno, hold on, you can make it through this, you’re strong, remember? Remember how we crossed the ice together, and how… and how…” she coughed, tears choking in her throat. He was grasping her hand, but his grip was so weak, his fingers already loosening. She realised she had been about to mention their youngest brother, but she could not bring herself to speak of Arakáno, not now. Not when none of them had been able to save him.

“Remember…” she continued “…when you saved Maitimo? What would he say now, hmm?” She squeezed his hand, blanching as she felt his grip grow weaker, his eyes lose focus. “Hurry up, Lómion!” she called over her shoulder. She looked back to Fingon, seeing that his eyes were filling with tears now too, although they roamed about the room under half-closed lids, always slipping away from her. She wiped the tears from his cheeks, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Remember Atar’s coronation, and the first time we stood on the walls of Barad Eithel when it was new-built and looked out… how splendid it all looked…”

“Calendínen, the green silence” exclaimed Maeglin from behind her. “A strong sedative, thick and green. Called the silence because it lulls the victim into a slow sleep from which they never wake… or at least in  _small_ quantities…” he was staring at the empty bottle in horror, and then at Eöl’s form slumped unconscious on the floor, “I remember him telling me…” he faltered “I’ve never heard of such a large dose used… it’s…” he was staring at Fingon, shaking his head. “It’s supposed to be troublesome for the poisoner, too. Usually used with gloves when putting it on a weapon tip, difficult to wash off the hands, easy to accidentally ingest…” he frowned, his mind working, trying to remember. “And so…”

“So…” said Aredhel, hope suddenly seizing her, as she held Fingon’s limp hand in both of her own “…the poisoner must always carry the antidote with them!”

“Yes!”

She turned back to Fingon as Maeglin rummaged hurriedly amid Eöl’s gear. A stab of alarm went through her as she saw that her brother’s head had slipped to one side, his hair pooling inky on the floor. She took his face in her hands as his eyes fell closed, pressing her forehead to his. “Finno, Finno” she muttered desperately. His words from only that day came back to her.  _We feared you lost._  She gritted her teeth.

And then Maeglin was tapping at her elbow, offering her a tiny bottle. “I _think_  it’s the right one, I’m almost certain, but if not…”

“If not…?”

“It could as easily kill him.”

She looked at Fingon’s pale face, and smoothed the hair from his forehead, trying not to think about how cold he was. Then she looked at Maeglin, and back to the small brown glass bottle in her hand.

She took a deep, steadying breath.

She kissed the bottle, and then her brother’s cheek, before opening Fingon’s mouth, squeezing her eyes shut and pouring the bottle’s contents down his throat.

For a painfully long moment, nothing happened. Then his whole body spasmed, muscles going ridged even as she cradled him. His hand grasped hers back suddenly, squeezing hard. His eyes went wide and glassy with panic for a brief moment, meeting hers, before he sucked in a long breath and went still in her arms.


	3. Chapter 3

**_Fingon_ **

They stood upon the walls of Barad Eithel, looking out over the valley as it fell away before them. The wind stirred their white woollen cloaks and lifted their hair, hers braided with silver and his with gold.

“The valley looks the same” said Aredhel, her voice breaking a little.

Fingon turned to scrutinise her face, wincing a little at the twists of pain in his arm in its sling and in his bruised chest. “Yes” he admitted. “Although there is quite the small town growing up on the slopes since you last saw it.” He gestured out across the valley with his good hand. “It’s a shame you didn’t get to see more of Dor-lómin, and my people. I would have liked to show you.”

“I would love that” she said, sounding as though she meant her words. She hesitated for a moment as he watched her. “Perhaps you will still have the chance.”

“Then… you’ve decided not to go back to Turukáno in Gondolin?” He tried to keep his voice neutral, suspecting he was failing. “Or… wherever else you want to go?” he added, checking himself.

She laughed quietly. “In truth I have not yet made up my mind. I will speak to Lómion… he is fully grown now. He deserves to be asked.” A shadow crossed her face, which was still paler than Fingon had ever seen it.  _For how many years had she been denied the daylight, kept confined in the dark…?_

“His father… Eöl… I don’t think it is good for Lómion to be around him so much. I think his presence…” she tailed off, shaking her head and crossing her arms across her body, unconsciously.

Fingon held her in an awkward one-armed hug, as well as he could with his sling. “I will talk to Atar” he said. “He wanted to question Eöl, but… I’m certain he could be persuaded to leave his final fate to you…”

“The problem is” said Aredhel, distracted. “That as long as he is simply sitting in the dungeons below Barad Eithel, Atar has a problem.”

“Oh, Irissë…”

“No, listen. Eöl is a vassal of Doriath, whatever he may have done. We have no evidence for his…” she looked uncomfortable and he held her closer “… his cruelty, save my word and my son’s. Thingol, from what I could gather of him as Eöl’s liege lord, seems unlikely to listen to a princess of our people, especially about something like this. If we harm Eöl, he may well take it as a slight.”

Fingon balled his uninjured hand into a fist, swallowing painfully. His throat still hurt, sometimes. “We will  _make_  him listen” he growled. “Somehow, you will have justice. I don’t know how, but… you will.” He frowned. “He doesn’t deserve even that much. I suppose you’re still opposed to simply - ”

“Finno” she interrupted him, in a quelling tone. “No executions. Please, we’ve been over this.”

“Alright, alright.” He raised his hands, muttering “he did try to kill me too, so you might think I should have a say, but - ”

"Finno."

“I suppose it wouldn’t be very honourable, anyway. If we can do nothing else, we can at least be better than Eöl” he mused. “Hmm, talking of which, have you seen Lómion this morning?”

“I think Atar was talking to him” said Aredhel, looking back out over the valley. “My son likes it here, I’m certain of it.” She was smiling, Fingon saw, and felt the burden of sorrow that he bore lighten just a little. “And what of you?” said Aredhel, taking his hand in her own. “You’re not in too much pain, I hope?”

“Not as much as on the journey here, in that awful rattling carriage” Fingon said, laughing. “We should be glad we even made it through the mountains from that forsaken little outpost in that thing.”

She swatted his arm with the corner of her cloak. “Seems to me you should be acting a little more grateful to be alive.”

“It wasn’t quite like that… I nearly had him!” protested Fingon. “Nearly. Well. You might have had something to do with his capture.”

He had been trying to make her laugh again – for, he thought, her downturned mouth looked like it had seen too few smiles in many years – but Aredhel only frowned, looking troubled. “You should have a guard” she said. “Or more than one. Competent, trusted soldiers, with you at all times.”

“At all times?” he raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not invincible, Finno. That business with Eöl… that was far too close. You had the advantage of being unconscious at the end and not seeing what happened, but it was…” she drew in a breath. “It was a very near thing for you.”

“And yet here we both stand, having this conversation” he said, trying to sooth his own fear at the fretfulness in her face.

She gave him a long look, then sighed, her mouth quirking up at the edges, before hugging him tightly.

“Ai! Watch the arm! Broken bones, you know.”

“Get Maitimo to teach you to use the other one for daily tasks, you’ll be better for it even when it’s healed.” She was smiling now, too, although there were still shadows under her eyes. “You will tell him, won’t you?”

“Not likely! Well, maybe at  _some_  point, but Atar’s fretting was bad enough. And Maitimo’s skilled enough at dwelling on his troubles already, without worrying that harm may come to me.” He grinned, suddenly. “Besides, he would probably start a war with Thingol over less.”

“Harm  _may_  come to you, Findekáno. And Maitimo wouldn’t start a war, you know that.”

“He and Atar could start one together. If they didn’t, I’m certain Tyelko at least would relish the excuse…”

“Finno, that was an extremely inappropriate and undiplomatic thing for the crown prince of our people to say.”

“Now your time living with Turukáno begins to show…” he feigned outrage, pressing a hand to his chest. “Or do you think I’m not  _worth_  starting a war over, Irissë? Is that what you’re trying to imply?”

She kissed his cheek. “It may be somewhat inadvisable, but I personally would start a war over you, Finno. Any day.”

He frowned, suddenly serious once more. “Let us hope that nothing of the sort will ever be necessary.”

“There at least we can agree, brother.”

———- 

**_Maeglin_ **

Maeglin picked his way gingerly down the stairs to the dungeons, his grandfather’s lampstone in his hand. The lantern that held the stone was heavy, ornate, and Maeglin felt a little ridiculous carrying it, but there was nothing for it. He had to see.

The jailor gave him a curt nod of acknowledgement as he let Maeglin through; he was expected here. And then he was there, close enough to touch.

The bars were heavy steel, and Eöl had pressed his face close to them at the sight of Maeglin’s approach. They were of a height now ( _how had he never noticed that before?)_ and Maeglin took a deep breath, the uncomfortable notion fluttering momentarily through his mind that his father knew exactly what he was thinking.  _At least that had not changed._

Eöl simply watched him, as Maeglin raised his lamp, holding it so that its light bathed both their faces. Eöl’s face was motionless, the planes of his features as hard as carven stone, his eyes like black glass marbles as they met Maeglin’s own. The same eyes, as so many had often said. He had his mother’s look in many ways - although few in Nan Elmoth had been quick to emphasise that when Eöl was there - but his eyes were his father’s.

Maeglin felt himself beginning to frown slightly, the merest fraction of an expression flitting across his face. Not for the first time, he wished he had mastered Eöl’s ability to keep his face so still, like a great predator waiting to pounce.

“Why are you here, my son?” said Eöl quietly, his voice a sudden rasp.

Maeglin blinked. “To see you.” He truly had only meant to  _see_  Eöl, had almost hoped he would be sleeping, or would have been taken for questioning, allowing Maeglin the mere distant glimpse that he craved. But he had come too far now. Too far to back down. Too far to leave without what he had come for, whether he had known it or not.

“Well, I hope you have had a satisfactory stare” said Eöl, his voice flat and uninflected to the casual listener, and yet somehow exquisitely dangerous for all that.

Maeglin was frowning, unable to speak as he watched the shadows play across his father’s face, suddenly seeing him  _differently_ , as though for the first time.

“You have nothing to say?” Eöl’s hands clenched on the bars of the cell.

“I - ”

“I suppose I should tell you not to forget me.” His voice cracked like a whip. “Never forget who you truly are, no matter how these fine lords and ladies, these perverse kinslayers, try to make you one of them. I could tell you that the world would have been better off without their kind.” He shrugged, pressing his face closer between the bars. “I won’t though. It’s too late. Only this.” His lip curled, as Maeglin watched. “You are  _me_ , Maeglin. You are me, writ small.”

“No.” Maeglin was surprised by the assurance in his own voice.  
“Yes. That is all you will ever be. You will never have a place here, and whatever they do to me, so will you suffer - ”

“ _No._ ” He spoke the word louder this time. “No, I don’t have to listen to you, I don’t…”

Eöl shrugged unconcernedly. “Certainly you do not have to listen to me. It’s not as if I am your  _father_ , anymore. Not since you renounced me” his lip curled, “ah, but you don’t even need to hear me say it, do you? You know it. You’ve known it for so long, my son. But anyway, you’ve made your choice, and now you must live with the consequences.” His lip twisted. “I hope they are what you expected.”

Maeglin tore his eyes away from Eöl’s gaze, deliberately ignoring the words even as they sounded in his head. “I’ve seen what I needed to see. I will be going now.”

Eöl shrugged. “Give my regards to your mother.”

Maeglin gritted his teeth and turned away, refusing to look back.

The brightness assaulted his eyes as he stepped into the courtyard from the door that led down to the dungeons. He tilted his head back, looking at the towers that ringed the keep rising all around him in the morning sunlight.

He found his feet taking him upwards, up into the light. He wanted to stand upon the walls, feel the sharp mountain sunlight on his skin. It was still new for him, this strange, vertical place, with the mountains rising all about and the bite and shimmer in the clear air on frosty mornings.

He took his time, watching the guards, listening to the wind in the ropes of the banners of the house of Fingolfin and the standard of the high king snapping and rattling above as the wind lifted. At the end of the wallwalk were two figures in white cloaks, growing larger as he came up behind, and stood between them.

What was it his father had said?  _You’ve made a choice._

 _Yes_ , thought Maeglin as his mother turned to wrap an arm about his shoulders and Fingon gave him an encouraging smile.  _Yes, I have._

“Is that the sword?” said Fingon curiously, eyes lighting on Anguirel hanging in its scabbard at his belt. “May I see?”

Maeglin drew the sword and presented it to his uncle, hilt first. Fingon swung the blade, testing its weight, a tiny frown gathering on his face.

“Its name is Anguirel” explained Maeglin. “Forged from the metal at the heart of a burning star.”

Fingon handed the black sword back carefully. “Thank you for letting me look at it. It is a fine blade, that much I can tell, but… I’ve never seen a sword quite like it. It’s very…” he cast about for the right word.

“For once you’re  _too_  tactful, Finno. I always thought it was an appallingly ugly thing” said Aredhel baldly. “You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to, Lómion, we can put it away, get you another sword… I will talk to my father’s armourers, or we can send a letter to cousin Curvo in the east, and his master smiths…” her smile was troubled. “Whatever you like.”

Maeglin looked between Fingon and his mother. “I…” he began.

Fingon gave him an encouraging smile. “Think on it. There’s no need to decide now.”

“Thank you” said Maeglin. “I will.”

Later, when he returned to the room he had been given he unbuckled the sword carefully from his belt, loosening it in its scabbard. The pommel bore a black stone, polished to perfect spherical smoothness, dark and glassy. Maeglin stared into it. Sometimes, he thought, it almost looked like a great eye, staring back at him.

Frowning, he shook his head to dispel such fancies.

He put the sword away, wrapping it in his cloak and placing it carefully in the wardrobe. He knew he would not need to carry it with him here in the heart of his grandfather’s great fortress. And he found he felt the urge to cover that great, black staring eye.

 _Childish_ , he thought to himself. And yet he knew that he would sleep easier if his father’s sword –  _his_  sword now, Maeglin had to keep reminding himself - was out of sight, if not quite out of mind.


End file.
